The release build finally worked

Posted 2024-01-22

I'm pretty bad at CI stuff. It took me a lot of tries to figure it out, but after a bunch of messing with it, I did finally get the ldc build out of github actions to work after merging the repos.

Merging the dmd and ldc codebases caused some pain - it meant the existing script would no longer just work - but it also brings some benefit: code changes will apply to both without having to run their catchup script anymore, which meant I would not have to modify that one to apply to the forked repositories.

I'm actually inclined to go with a full monorepo of basically everything. The compilers, runtime, main tools, perhaps even the third party libraries and website. I've already started work on the third party library integration. The idea there is to add many libraries as subpackages, do modifications as required, then git pull and rebase to keep up new features from upstream and then extract the necessary modules for import such that it just works without additional configuration files. This will achieve a long running goal of mine: independent development, just works usage.

The website is still separate, since getting the working release was the first goal, not a whole lot has been done there. But now with a release, with library integration, and with the working merged compiler codebase, I think we're about ready to actually get to work.

The Android native compiler out of CI didn't actually work, but the cross compiler did. I'm inclined to just stop the build of the android native thing to not waste time and focus on the cross compiler unless someone steps up and says it is important to them.

Also, Walter announced that he approved the addition of interpolated expression sequences into the upstream language too. We'll see when it is actually released and what changes happen to it, but that's a positive development for them, and likely a direct result of competitive pressure brought on by the OpenD fork.

Planning on announcing a formal release download in early February.